After a few years of tweaking and toying, I've determined that the best stripping basket doesn't exist yet and to get it I'd have to build it. Yes, the orvis basket is a damn good one, if not the best store-bought model out there. But the design I had in mind is completely different from the ones people use today, so the mission to build the noveau basquet begun.

This was all well and good but every time I went to locate materials ol' miss Rubbermaid would wink at me in a dark aisle and for a few bucks, I'd walk out of the hardware store with another forest green dishpan.

Now that I've gone as far as cutting two slots and threading a nylon mesh strap with quick-release buckles to the dishpan, I have resigned to the fact that I will probably never build the grandiose basket I envisioned, and so the next step is to ask the readership...